You Never Check Your Back Pocket

Surely the Second Coming is at Hand

Workers of the World Unite

real Aliens

Can't Stop Loving You

caution--not safe for Abagail

--The Remains of Brian Borcherdt

Picnic Panic

Posthuman

The zombies arrive at the screening of your soul

Don’t look, the eggs are unhinging

with delight even as the antennae appear

Edge-shadowed from under the bunker.

In the suits of funeral participants, smudge dark

and dried up stiff around the stains, these fashions

they hedge the century by shaving more ice

into the ages by singing. These zombies are not

politely educated but they are critics, ultimately

Banging arrows into merchant dreams

with a thwock-thwock one two, clearing out helmets

and police cars just as fast as a wooly mammoth

strips out the safe harbor of the strip mall

by laying tread all down the city’s spine.

In the theater of the movie of your soul,

you are quaintly chewing on a drinking straw

as the bombing goes on, making you nervous.

Now the zombies are brewing coffee

with your brains but you have scripted a long

tunnel of escape and terror, so long

it stretches into infinity before caving in

but the zombies don’t stop squeezing through.

The Admission

This is the scene in the movie where we learn

that the zombies teeth become so accentuated

because the news of being dead travels first

to the mandibles then to the soul.

Maybe not so vampire or werewolf like

but you have to admit the teeth, the beacon

fires that let your whole being now it still is

and is yet no more, you have to admit they

get awful yellow awful quick, like a cart load

of corpses during the plague, the news

comes out of these scenes, and some bodies

get old and start to smell, right? and some get

up all tooth wrong, leaving little spurts of juice

like tips on the table and start to come

at you and you wonder how to get out of this

scene, the frames slipping so fast you fall ,

or you could be suspended in white space,

or slick on a wetness and as everything slows down

you notice how it gets long, gums wrinkling

like theater curtains and everything going yellow,

tumbling upon you like a sack of lemons was

held above you for so long and finally someone

came by with a sharp knife and sliced it open

on you, and you kneel down as they thump on you

because you have to admit it that we cant know

everything about the zombies and their teeth.

Mongrel Nation - origin of english language

Note the icy stare

Cuz This Is MY United States of Whatever

This Zombie Movie

This zombie movie takes place

Inside the head of the Zombie

In order to show what he is thinking

As he tries to eat the young

Person hiding in the bed

Of the pickup truck that died

Half way to safety which is the end

Of this movie and which is

Also the deception of safety

Which is also the end of this movie

About zombies and thinking

And getaways and parking

In the right place so as not to be left

With anything on your mind

When you go in to see this movie

About what the zombie is thinking.

What is his motivation, the method

Actor might ask, and the answer,

The deep moving memory of human

Concern that propels him in his

Bloodied suit and tie even into this

Theater is a as gruesome a mantra

As an executive bowtie or a sale on

Corporate farmed replacement kidneys,

It is the same burning question we all have:

Do you validate? Do you validate?

Do you validate?

I'm So Curious

Cordyceps Fungus

Probably the most stunning and horrifically beautiful thing I have ever seen on television.

From the BBC series Planet Earth

Misanthropic Needles

Evening in her dress lifts the hem

For a peep at thunder, maybe rain.

Hope for the tomb, laughter

Comes over a loud speaker

Installed near your armpit.

Quietly, quietly,

It is necessary to interrupt.

One point in the distance

Is a huddle of laundry

Dry, rotting, perverse.

Some hunters and their deer,

They tie the racket to a tree

And unload beer, carnage

Cleaning the esophagus is severed.

This deer has a sack of potatoes in her

Corset. Blue eyes

In the dark barn. Someone

Playing a piccolo stops

To a sudden distance. Recall

The posture of a cloud

Alerting us all to a mourning.

So many trumpets of countryside

So many calming ointments.

Meanwhile the geese engage in firefights,

Misled by the compass points

Engagement like pulling rings

Through their nipples.

A lizard crawls out of the cold

Remembering the belly of rock

Igneous, geometric spindle

I wish it was still cold out

So the sacrifice wouldn’t rot.

I’m the air in a swirl as the pickup truck

Passes. Frightful eaves outside a morticians

Bedroom.

Awkward slip of change

Quarters

Through

Nightclothes.

My minutes are running out: each

Second marked by a dog bark

To which I wince abominably.

Track of mud and hair

Enormous shame.

And the door is ambiguous

Eternal separatist

Possessed of elements

A car in the wind, a breeze

Over streets, some shopping

Perhaps I’ll buy a Peruvian Mask

Made of seal intestine.

Attuned to the cracking sidewalk’s

Edge, blank’s signature

Sand on wind convection

Tighter circles until synched.

Hanging plants invested

Of root, I demand a recount.

One grain catches me in the eye

My eye, caught and hung

From a tree, her spindle root

Flagellating in wiry creation

I am working a finger up and

Back into view.

This apartment is expensive

But it has a great view.

It could be said of kindness

She holds a pin to the sun.

So I dig with my hands because

Deflation is obvious,

The mounds are godlike, it’s a shame.

Merit and bloom, cantankerous

Twins shouting

To a mother unburdening her wax

I am not without a grave, spectacle

Not submergible without

A word for drowning.

I’m eating a footlong

And scraping out manifestoes

So measured by feet fit just barely

Through the walls

Made to enclose a god.

My sandwich prefers track lighting

While the subway looms neon,

Together they produce

A segmented apartment building

For the worm to inhabit.

It is in the ability to hand

Streets their walking shoes

That the technical louver of rainwater

Slices fingers off,

Children’s digits to god,

Her segmented ability to

Both gnaw

And be worshipped.

Balanced blood vessel

Is a skill of blending,

One foot on either side

Of the knife,

Beach sand gently sawing

At an unhurried mistake.

Dredging chasms of Bank Notes

Departed headstones.

The Jessica Numbers

I have no idea what's going on, but oh the colors!

btw-- New Pornographers

Metal Emo Blue House Fire Pit

Performance Piece--Winter 1992

Much thanks to "Wilbur Evans."

The Tubercular

If you were to fornicate with the afterglow

of your own wound

Keats on the Spanish steps

made the dogs howl with the smell

which is where great art Zombifies,

on the steps,

hacking up great spurts of lung

fair reader

this is one half step away from pure

meaning.

What is we had Keats’ brain in a jar

marked marmalade?

What is reanimating? watching cartoons

again and again

until the afterlife

I guess.

II. Infections Performed Before Witness

Because the origins of reanimation are unknown

doctors sacrifice volunteers on a platform

wearing gowns of purple with gold threads

before great columns of pyrotechnics on TV.

Today we have a Data Entry Technician from

Topeka interested in astrology.

She maintains

extraterrestrial given her faiths, Virgo in twining

the self orchestrated to the other new-by becoming

the gnawing distended self of Zombie, oof.

The moon above says “grow”. The Data entry

left behind weeps openly, floods of code, coded

streams of uneaten fast food lunches.

Bedraggled

looking back, the priest with serpent knife

says death is the possibility of sex, the roof

gasps. The porous transition of shape.

ABD biatches

Sweet Merciful Crap

I can't believe it took until JUST NOW for it to occur to me to post this here.

In The Sea-Change Nothing Is Safe

Zombie Oblique

You need a metal screen across your windshield

If you want to drive at night. Zombie eyes

Don’t reflect the headlights like a deer.

You might wish you could stop and vacuum

Out the car once in a while. Some gore, dried.

Some goop globed from one chewing

On the reinforced bars around the passenger

Side door. There are no more cigarettes now

To feed an ashtray with. Bars of light across

The fog, zebra night and stutter feet out

Of the green backlit soundstage our lives

Have rotten into. Some gauge out of

A storm cellar where transformations hid

Themselves to wade out the parade of storms.

Living animals crashing through the bushes

To die beneath the wheels. Run one over.

How about two? The screen’s a springing

Shock of protection, gives an off key twang

When another zombie dives head-to.

Finger Food

Relax, there is no history now

To rise up from and overcome.

But there are some photos left

On the kitchen table like desert

Plates. Some mistaken preserve

And reward of us on a bridge

With sunset, church and mustache.

Remember these pictures waiting

To come back from the dead?

The piazza from the café, Rosetta

Memorial of family lineage in

Genealogical phrasebooks rotting

In a medieval tomb. Parchment

Like skin, none of them family.

There’s the blurred thumb or half

Face and cheek too close up to be

Made out, but I can tell is you

From sleeping that close to your

Breath. Then the mistaken

Colander of being, separating

The life juice from our fleshy

Spiral shapes, the softening juices.

And there, by the photos, are your

Fingers. Sharply bitten off, one

At a time as you held your hand up

To protect your neck. Sure, I

Remember. What I don’t, that’s

What the pictures are for, just the

Beginning of a hand, reaching out.

No, I Am the Batman

& you are my mathematician monkey assistant.

Here is your helmet.

Every day and in every way,

I am getting better and better!

We've Got A Bigger Problem Now

The Zombie that Ate Paris

The Zombies will not stop emerging from my movie posters.

A giant head emerges from the map

Pate, brow, eyes, as from a lake which shouldn’t be

Over seeing as in a giant movie poster the Eifel tower

And what other exempla of Paris-ness like

The Moulin wind mill. Beneath these eyes

Which peel in desperation, the lower follicles

Brandish gunshots. Nevertheless this zombie will not stop coming

Out of the cheap plastic poster frame in the hall.

I fumble out the remote to see if that works

But the synth beat soundtrack swells to crashing

Until finally this hallway of bare light is claustrophobic

With my new undead conductor, bald and bow tied,

Honored to accept this award for cinematic ingestion.

Imminent Dread

Not, finally, the teeth.

Instead Mrs. McGuckian in her torn house coat

And loose arms revealing an elderly breast

Which tears on the broken window as she comes

Finally inside. We have been waiting

In the audience of smiles for evil to shed

The banality of its uniform, to bow

Politely as the Maitre d of the gas chamber.

For evil is as a polite as bumpkin in a classy restaurant

Smilingly observing the quality of each new dish

Of horrors, some snails, some brains, some ascensions

He, and I mean you, could never otherwise submit to.

Thus the smell of bodies on old clothes

Is more frightening than the actual taste of it, squishing

Over the lips into a stomach-less void of hunger

Instinct pearled around our necks

Like a noose of delicate acquiescence.

Zombie Susquehanna

We do not speak like pharmacists anymore.

Instead we groan in the dark streets like lovers

Eager to finish sowing the fields.

Some black and white photo of silhouettes in profile,

Pictures from vacations, head turned as though

To a voice calling from behind: over here.

We give up the city parks for pleasure

And look to walking meat sticks like flowers

To the sun. Here, the correct word for freezing

Is hunger. Not the mailbox, the imagined message

Through the air, that relinquishment of voice

To time and fingers slicing up the envelope

To return it to the hometown, little home

Drowning in the squeeze of its own juices,

Smearing across the table. We say what we feel.

Union Meeting of the Dead

This day is worse than the first

A scratching hand is still at the door

And this is more than beyond will.

For the Fork Salad and a Brain Trust local One-O-Seven

They said it couldn’t be done

Benefits for so many needy and of course deserving

Souls,

Departed. Or, just the same,

A food line, the chapter organizers here and there are

Pushing over some bits, fighting to ascend the podium while,

Unmolested, the keg of beer in the corner returns unhurriedly

To room temperature.

One legless member, hook ear and half an eye, plans,

In his after life, which is through a graying

Slobber of preserved being, some

Self revoked to membership through a mirror through a mirror.

And while they still glimmer to vote on limiting dues,

A gobbet of the Exchequer

Gores down Member Fifty Seven’s

Neck and into a pocket-protected front pocket.

There is a motion called to detonate a snake bomb,

And who will inherit the bite to the mouth on the mouth

Who the chunks, see

The members in dredge colored skin,

Skin of rivers and rivers polluted by grabbing smoke stacks

Hungry for sky.

Are You Not Entertained???

Yo, Lurkers!

I can see you seeing in here! Post comments! Do it now!

Big John Got Hisself a BadAss Chopper-Moped Thing

Troll_Boner_69

Here is the screen name you mustn’t touch,

But you may feel the delay coming upon the box

Of being you writhe in. Also, the lord cometh:

No Me Tokes. Hear the heralds grind-core,

The Styrofoam goat’s head and black robes,

The gilded corners of the pentagram, a blank

Screen, then tile backgrounds of Satans upon

Satans.

If you recall how vinyl captured these

Band logos in hexagonal blood letters, then

Your shape is a waxy cloth breeze-torn

Across a chain link fence. You are the band

Member wannabe in forlorn leathers beyond

The backstage doors. What I mean of course

Is that it is me. So my website is a rubbing

On wax, porno disclaimers and keep-hiddens

Behind the screen names. Bloody, bloody sticks.

So Christ, fresh back from the concert

Says don’t touch my merchandise, fried foods

Of the mind Cholesteroling the soul, merchandise

Eyes. And you do not know why I put a cheesy

Studded wrist band to the air? It is a denial

In pure form of my stumpy mentality, an

Un-resurrect-able personality vaingloriously

Endowed with a perverted self denial.

Troll, the hog brain in underwear roaming

Bayou and beer-hall Fen hoping for the chance

To show off my computer boner, the throng

Of god hammer that must never be touched,

But that might be found in mood, in the mood,

In the mood. And still, the lord manages to

To come up for air and go back down, back down

In to the spiritual sixty nine, times nine,

The six and the six and the inverted vertebrate

The filthy, filthy screen name you must never touch.

Last One, Promise

We're All Fine Here, Now...How Are You?

You've Never Heard Of The Millenium Falcon?

Like Mountains Made of Fruity Pebbles

I got to go riding on the Blue Ridge Parkway this weekend and took some pictures of the trip. Probably the most enjoyable aspect were the blissed-out old-timers grinning it up all over the place. I spent a lot time inside my helmet wondering if it was still possible to "Commune with Nature" by traveling through it at a rate of fifty miles per hour.

ROBOTECHNICGODZILLA GO!

Run and Scream, Bitches.

No, Mr. Lolrus, we will never forget.

Simulacra & Gravity

Nearby they are driving piles

into bedrock

For the new parking garage.

A red tailed hawk glides

above its shadow

Onto a roof, so strange

to the sky

I have to sit down on a bench

and watch it

Until it flies away.

It is for me like

When people woke up

on September 11^th

And didn’t believe

what they saw on TV

Because it was too much

like a movie.

This bird, so large and actual.

But even there I

have to stop because

Somehow I don’t believe

it’s real.

How could it,

Be so beautiful, so shrug

To the constant clanging

Beat back from the facades

in an echo

Of Anti-grace,

how could such a thing,

Be made of pictures

from a child’s book?

The hawk perches on a cornice

And the people walk on

Beneath its eyes. They are

beaten by the sound

Of metal, the distant apparatus

Of the pile driver

pressing claw after

Claw into bedrock.

But what is a thing

without lifting?

And after the world is covered

in structures,

And, become a presentation

Of poor Plato’s dream,

After everything is part

of the left over stage set

The hawk will look up

into the yellow light

And not be sick of it.

He will fly off and I will be

left to undertake the moment,

Dress her in burial gowns

and send her down

to read her lines before

The firing squad.

I still can’t believe t

The vastness of birds.

The great wings

and the weather,

The bending away

from the grounds,

What I know, the familiar

Crumbles back

To the ground.

:::

Wilt Hammer

In the house next to the house you want to buy

Lives the world’s ugliest transvestite.

Seeing him undone you’ve barked, in passing,

The truck precisely navigating the gentle

Bend the road takes into vastly less cool

Neighborhoods. Imagine a beard patching

Its way through creased cakes of base makeup,

Large legs darkly nubbed in here and there

Splaying nylons, a street corner marking

The boundaries of what is at premium

Most desirabe, the house, and wrong, the man

Be-penised and thus malformed to this world,

Imagine how he would be glad to watch the kids

So you could scuttle up some afternoon coitus.

Wait. I’ve already gone too far haven’t I?

::

Germanic Nerd Metal

Rammstein--Amerika

Zanna

Super Fang

I fang. Does the tiny shoe fest? Duh.
Who let the dogs out? I’m good as
Superman’s boating accident whereby
The nun’s super strength contorted
Us through black hole’s dinner guest.
You fang. No joke. It’s a contusion
Likely to fish as dam this time I caught
A hyperbaric bonfire: the palates, THE
PALATES poured gas on the memory
Of all our mothers, she collecting
To light her fumes but it was a third
Degree memory, one fang in, one out.
We fang more efficiently crossing
Cooling the dogs with a saucy squelch.

Zanna excellent Zanna

The very small shoe plus fest? Duh.
Who they have the dogs left?
I am well as an incident of canottaggio
of super man for which the excellent
capacitance of contorted nun our I
the host of breakfast of the black
breach oversteek. You zanna.
None scherts I. He is a contusion
probable poiche the dam fish
these me aims have intervened
fé hyperbarique of to: the palates,
the PALATES have paid the gas
on the memory of already our mothers,
they that he for lu brings together
a steam explain but she was a third
memory of degree, zanna in, outside.
We zanna which more effectively
cross by cooling down
saucy the dogs with squelch.













::

Congratulations, Mr. Murden

Are We the People?

Some Kind of Monster

Svenska, the Swedish Cockroach

I’m telling you not everything is as Swedish

As the corner stone’s rough accent. Enmeshed

With a barbiturate of coal, the knife wielder

Sheds barley into political leaflets and then,

And then the children pull a harder oar, digit

All string lines in and out of Scand-O frontal

Lobes like lovers stacking bricks on strings

Of high nosed tones, those hairs, I’m telling

You of stacking and pronouncement so you

Can not say you were not there, excusing

Bails and crosshairs from that rich design

Much admired in your coffee maker’s lux

Uriant position overseeing the cabinetry

And the inferior end tables who bow mock

Supplications to this throw pillow’s clack

Beading hairstyle. Listen well, subvert

A stony presence, there a roach imitates

The renter’s pose, there a mouse judges with

A turd and every carpet fiber reels beneath

The weight of century’s worth of mites

Upon mites generating political organizations

Out of the residue of your skin, foliate

To follicle to the bonnet dream light’s neon.

:::

Okay Fine, Then

Here ya go, Professor Snodgrass

Meet The Poets

Satan's Parrot Speaks Through Me

1,000 Posts Here At the Shambling Darkness Project

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
That's Right, One Thousand.

Dented, scarred, well past warranty and still grinding away like a motherfucker.

self-portrait #2

Father's Day

The Father in the foxhole
Came home again, he was transformed.
The children were frightened, stay under the covers.
The father in the yard with all their clothes. The father
Vanished, mother did not say where. The baby
In the chair, the baby’s doll left sitting in the chair.
The youngest boy grew up, quietly.

This was a short line, generations tumbling.
The quiet man had his own sons. The father
Sleeping from many days on the road, we mustn’t bother him.
The boys grew like wild grass rioting in a clearing in the woods,
Those sons whose son’s leapt.

There was the Father who ran away,
The one who crawled at night, who became strange to his son.
He became twisted and crazed. He was transformed.
Dangerous, terrible and sick. The boy became quiet. The father
Outside under the orange light of the alley. He went away.
The Father went away and came home again, restored.

A Very Horrible Song

A special thanks to Ukrops muzak. My god do I loathe Phil Collins.

Monongahela This

Fatherhood

A man has the unique ability to turn his heart to stone. Therefore
He is most suited to kill an animal, dismantle a friendship or to break the heart
Of his two year old child by telling her, You may have no more milk.
I am taking your mother back to me. It is enough. Holding her all night
While she cries like an animal wounded to it's center. Hoping
He knows the mind of his child well enough that this will make her strong
And brave. That what he does is right. That he knows his own mind
Well enough.

There is damage enough to be had by fathers, or to be dealt.
Calamitous minds of others to be shut out from home,
The calamitous house to be mended. Tidied and straightened
Before bed. Trouble enough to be kept away, forgotten, or forgiven.
There are the hidden gifts locked inside a child's hand, delicate
Like a child's hand. There is the sleeping hand to be held in your sleeping hand.

Stay Wild

Without wrath.

Never forget the joy of against

The echo cauldron of blessed against.

Forget your lifetime of hapless revenge.

Sing loud, pilgrim, your anthem of disgust

Without contempt. Stay wild.

Self Portrait

Last Letter to An Open Door

I wonder how it will feel after they bite you

And then you fall asleep in front of the news

Showing the oil refinery on fire and then cutting

To surveillance footage from the circle K

Of the clerk fighting off two men who don’t

Stop attacking him until the floor around

The coffee island is an ocean of red-red

Sticky sugar syrup in thick plastic patterns

And then you just die, expire, pass on,

A swirling set of footsteps up through

The dark place where memories don’t matter

Any more. Go ahead now, look for

The kids upstairs, your wife who took

Out the trash a few days ago and never

Got around to putting the pork chops

Away and now they smell up the house

Something rotten. Or is now you,

Freshly up from the chair with stiff jerks

The way you felt sorry for your grandfather

Who had the hardest time getting up

From that La-Z-Boy before he died, but

Not before you helped him once, arm

Under arm and he turned his yellow

Teeth and spat at you to let him the fuck

Go, and yellow toothed you buried him

Under a sky like a lid laid down over

The rest of the world as if it were a

Sample of bacteria in a dish. And the lights

Are still on and the clock on the wall

Is still clicking out the movement into

The future and the white doily under

The lamp is dusty and you get to the door

And can still manage to get it open

And then you leave out into the night

Where there is a general sense of urgency

To find something to eat, anything to eat.

Jackson Ward

John and Me shot some pictures today in order to swell the Flickr pool for his Carver and Jackson Ward News website.

Well, Which Is It?

Cookie Monster Cookie Monster

May-may's new favorite Youtube

Pan Am Discard

And shudder the unblocking which unfastens such

Like the mythical cubes of frozen urine in blue

Couched which fall upon the heads of suburban

Men as long as they search the sky for fruits

Of their unblemished faith in the congruous

Quality of the king, here Elvis means, whose

Belted rhinestoned girth-some tract of be-quivering

And famed flesh enshrined by goat’s head Fire is.

Thus the evolution of a creature who, hid

In shades of loathsome and purchasable

Products, couched also all in black-hoods, these

Continental spires still can burn and stand.

So the error erodes its pearly spines

Which you need shame yourself thereof

To entertain that lack of longing flared

Of pained edge-eyed sheets stained, their worth.

:::

Training the Many Fisted Borzoi

One: ample exit room is required, clean

All oil cans and remove bloody rags

Before proceeding with the cavity search.

Two: De-claw all relatives. The family

Is a neat place to die but none I think

Do there meat pie. Get your house

In order. Through fire is recommended.

Three: Get your louse in order. The louse

Is best caught with the bones of fingertips.

Peel back the skin. Try it with teeth, fun

For the whole family.

Once you have prepared the Borzoi, you

May begin with the fisting. Lubricate

The hallway with blood. Cram a cadre

Of toxic friends into plastic bags and

Shove them through the opening.

All the rest is teeth, glorious teeth.

:::

Andean Appalachia

When I was little there was the highway through the mountains.
I knew my town was up there, somewhere. I had found it only once before.
Between two rocks there was an entrance. The houses were built
Into the cliffs either side. It was very cold. Mists smoked.
The stone road was narrow, the houses went straight up
Beside it. There were pine trees. I was the only one
Allowed in from outside. It was my town.
Even now, when I sleep, I try to find it.

The Body In A House

Gone To Ground

Fox Hole

The woods were the same as our woods in north Georgia

Low cedars and pines. The same clearing rubbed through

With slabs of prehistoric limestone. Our same rock circle,

Our fire pit under low Georgia winter skies. The fox-hole

Was still there, etched under a stand of raw cedars. I stumbled, I fell

Into the hole. It was light and tall, egg-shaped like the inside of a

Wasper’s nest. The red clay walls were lined to the ceiling with

Silent children. Applied there as if by some massive mud dauber.

And I think I recognized them.

Water Lilies

It wasn’t decay that consumed the ancient gardens

Surrounding the manor, but something like it.

Ragged hedgerows gnarled out of line, moss covered

Pavers rose out of walks, urged by roots. It was very dark

From all the trees and the green smell of everything.

Ivy wrapped thick over brick walls. Ivy choked

The stems of the great oaks.

There were pools above ground, tanks really.

Intricate Victorian iron bound glass above ground.

Taller than a man. Lilies spread thick over the surface,

Leaves floating like the open palms of many hands, flowers,

Roots winding past the glass through the murk.

There were bodies suspended upright in the water.

Limestone

The New Decay

The smell of wood smoke in the kitchen

After three months of fires and draught

Is the sun bare knuckled upon windows

The zombie bit me on the shoulder

Spray hard red and string of white tendon

Bright like fresh paper.

Vivid because I was going to die

But relaxing because we all were going to die

And it was going to be over for me,

I wondered if the dog would become one

Loose hound eyes all green, and if so, would

He only want to eat other dogs?

Because of the smoke, the light was like

From a jelly jar of orange something too long

In the fridge. The pain was electric.

The zombie had a fresh look, besides deranged

Eyes, kind of no one would know sneak

Up on you and bite hard on the neck kind

Of business man ordinariness. I think he was my

Neighbor who always rubbed his car

In the morning before he got in it, cat paw prints

Over the hood and windshield everyday like

A curse against gleaming. Now the sky

Is a tube of toothy light. Car, sky.

A Joke

Henry: Who are you on the phone with, Dad?

Me: Why Jay Snodgrass of course.

Henry: Tell Jay-jay I have a joke for him.

Me: Okay.

Jay Snodgrass (on speakerphone) : Alright, Henry, shoot.

Henry: Why doesn't, no, why can't you iron a rhinoceros?

Both: Why?

Henry: Because he has too many wrinkles! Ha ha ha!

Me: Wait a minute, I'm not sure that's how it goes.

Jay Snodgrass: It's because he will gorge you with his enormous horn!

Marks

Through the sighting scope you see

One zombie carrying the head of another zombie.

Both are dead one perhaps more so.

The walking one has a shirt on open at the neck

His face is carved with decay like tattoos of protection

Consider what one will do to keep the world upright

Covering your face in protective markings

To preserve order as it hazes about in the airs

Consider Iraq or Darfur or Prison, the stately engine

Perusing history easily overlooks

Our careful documents designed to preserve us

Ever after.

Then another zombie, casual Friday, tries to take

The head from the one, a tussle ensues then

Disappears behind some trees.

The zombie who had the head no longer does,

He gropes the air. The one who took it is holding

It up to its ear as if listening to what it is saying.

Recovering, they both turn again and begin

To gravitate to where you are watching them

Through the scope of your high powered rifle.

The sun is as everything else is, normal.

Sometimes you wonder about the sounds

Of friendship, the glissandos of before and after.

You mark another day on your arm in knife

Let the blood leak down, reply to raised questions.